In recent years, the use of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) for various common lighting purposes has increased, and this trend has accelerated as advances have been made in LEDs and in LED arrays, often referred to as “LED modules.” Indeed, lighting applications which previously had been served by fixtures using what are known as high-intensity discharge (HID) lamps are now beginning to be served by fixtures using LED-array-bearing modules. Such lighting applications include, among a good many others, roadway lighting, factory lighting, parking lot lighting, and commercial building lighting.
Work continues in the field of LED module development, and also in the field of using LED modules for various lighting applications. It is the latter field to which this invention relates.
Using LED modules as sources of light in place of HID lamps or other common light sources is far from a matter of mere replacement. Nearly everything about the technology is different and significant problems are encountered in the development of lighting fixture and systems utilizing LED modules. Among the many challenging considerations is the matter of dealing with heat dissipation, to name one example.
Furthermore, use of LED modules for common lighting applications requires much more than the typical lighting development efforts required in the past with HID or other more common light sources. In particular, creating LED-module-base lighting fixtures for widely varying common lighting applications—such as applications involving different light-intensity requirements, size requirements and placement requirements—is a difficult matter. In general, harnessing LED module technology for varying common lighting purposes is costly because of difficulty in adapting to specific requirements. There are significant barriers and problems in product development.
There is a significant need in the lighting-fixture industry for modular LED units—i.e., units that use LED modules and that are readily adaptable for multiple and varied common lighting applications, involving among other things varying fixture sizes, shapes and orientations and varied light intensity requirements. There is a significant need for modular LED units that are not only easy to adapt for varying common lighting uses, but easy to assemble with the remainder of lighting fixture structures, and relatively inexpensive to manufacture.